Border Line Calls
Thanks to those of you who responded to the appeal we passed along from the Farm
Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) for protests against the threat by the Mexican
government to deport FLOC representative Brendan Greene. Greene is assigned to
monitor cross-border enforcement of FLOC’s historic contract covering 8,000 H2A
Mexican guestworkers employed by the North Carolina Grower's Association and the
Mt.Olive Pickle Company. Greene held informational meetings in several villages
explaining potential recruit’s rights under the agreement. He also investigated
grievances by workers who have been charged more than the required amounts for
their visa interviews and travel by agents of the recruiters of the Association.
Greene was harassed by cops and then ordered to a deportation hearing, initially
scheduled last Thursday in Monterrey. As FLOC president Baldemar Velasquez said
"apparently, Brendan has touched a nerve in the corrupt element in this process
and there is now an attempt to get him out of the country." The many phone calls
and faxes to the Mexican embassy had some effect and the hearing was rescheduled
until May 30. We’ll keep you informed of developments in this important case.

Another union
that has close ties to Mexican workers on both sides of the border is the United
Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers (UE). They maintain an excellent
international solidarity web site. An interesting feature on the
site is Shop 'til you drop on a Mexican wage,
comparing how many hours Mexican and U.S. workers have to toil to buy the same
product. It’s a graphic explanation of what motivates so many Mexican workers to
immigrate, as either legal "guests" or undocumented.

It’s probably
no accident that both FLOC and UE have been stalwarts of the
Labor Party from the get-go.

Did They Now?
"GE union vote sends 130 jobs south of border" read a headline in the Ft Wayne
Journal Gazette.

Actually, of
course, it was GE management that decided to send 130 transformer jobs to
a plant in Mexico. What the IUE-CWA workers rejected was a five dollar an hour
cut in wages demanded by GE as the price for not immediately moving their jobs.

Two Demonstrations Better Than None
The majority of American people opposed to the war in Iraq continues to grow.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the organized antiwar movement which
has long been divided by sectarian factionalism and lacks a mass focus. We have
reported on efforts by US Labor Against the War to try to unify
antiwar forces around a mass demonstration this autumn. Recently the two major
centers of the movement–ANSWER and UFPJ–endorsed the need for unity. They then
each proceeded to call for their own March On Washington–two marches, same day,
different locations in the same city. It is good that efforts will be made to
draw tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands into the streets to make antiwar
sentiment visible. It is absurd to have essentially competing actions. The media
will focus on movement divisions rather than the majority the movement seeks to
speak for. Those who think there should be one unified effort can express your
opinion by sending messages to Leslie Cagan of UFPJ and Brian Becker of ANSWER:

Getting 45 Million To Pay Up
What do the National Association of Manufacturers, Heritage Foundation, Chamber
of Commerce, Pfizer, United Healthcare, and the AMA have in common with the
AARP, Families USA, AFL-CIO, and SEIU’s crusading dissident Andy Stern? Why they
are all concerned about our health, of course. They are especially interested it
seems in the 45 million or so Americans who don’t contribute any money to health
insurance companies for coverage. They are looking for legislation to require
more of the working poor to contribute their fair share to health industry
profits. Our friend Andy Pollack sent us this comment:

"The explicit
goal of the coalition is to put forward only incremental steps, and ... it is
opposed to a single-payer solution and insists on a continued role for the
insurance industry.

"Beside the
AFL rep, Andy Stern is also a member of the project. So both wings of the
‘debate’ in the AFL are represented in this shameful effort.

"Labor
activists are already mobilizing for the July AFL convention to demand the
Federation change its foreign policy; maybe supporters of single-payer should
show up in Chicago and demand labor tops pull out of this project and mobilize
the ranks for a universal, government-paid program."

Right on,
Andy. Fortunately, some unions are not getting with the program of shilling for
the insurance companies. UAW Local 1112 in Warren, Ohio is taking initiative to
launch a new chapter of the Single-Payer Action Network Ohio (SPAN
Ohio), an ambitious project for "Lifetime Comprehensive Health Care for All
Ohioans." And the Labor Party continues to win support for the only fair and
practical national plan on the table–Just
Health Care.